


we’re the ammunition in these badlands

by kuro49



Category: The Unit
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, nothing explicit despite the OT5 tag; can be read as purely platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 08:45:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2541488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Alpha team, and zombies too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we’re the ammunition in these badlands

**Author's Note:**

> I am only slightly sad that I couldn't make this more shippy but y'know, impending zombie apocalypse and all. (Trust me, I laughed so hard to myself when the [trailer](http://youtu.be/-dhWdQjHj6w) for Martini's Zombie Basement project surfaced as I was scrambling to get this written for Halloween, actually I am still laughing to myself right now.)

The world ends in the single way that the army doesn’t train for.

It ends in increments, and begins when they are not even on US soil.

 

“Nothing still, Top.”

Carlito is by the radio, static silence from the home front filling the interior of the truck.

Jonas doesn't need to ask to have Mack’s finger dropping to a point on the map, his second-in-command reading him just as well as he reads the rest of the team. And here, no one states the obvious when the unease just settles further into a gut feeling that sinks. It's a heightening sense of anticipation, of dread, of clenching fingers around a grenade with the pin pulled.

“Better get a move on then.”

Mack's fingers sweep down the column of Charles' spine as he passes him by, for reassurance’s sake, and this goes unsaid too.

Bob and Hector put away the last of their equipment, Jonas counts the klicks.

 

They are not on US soil when it happens.

In fact, they are off the grid, a blip on the map, halfway across the world, in the middle of a mission they have been planning for a good three months. It goes off without a hitch, and on their way to rendezvous, three weeks after initial deployment, Hector makes a joke that there must be retribution for such a job well done.

Mack laughs, and it's a loud, loud thing that fills all those small spaces between them. Bob shakes his head, mouth tilting in both corners because while he believes in retribution, he believes in the team more. Through the rear view mirror, Jonas just grins at the three of them sitting too cramped and too close in the backseat as Charles simply presses his knee against Hector’s.

Two minutes later, their local contact stops responding too.

 

“Boss.”

Mack warns when they near their rendezvous, and it's not the steel in that single word.

It's what they can all see, but what they see though, well.

They can’t quite put into words.

Bob doesn't murmur _steady_ when Mack takes aim.

There’s no resistance, a clean shot that should end a man when it goes through the heart like _that_. And they would know how a kill should look. But there isn’t even a spark of recognition of pain on that face, so Mack shoots again. Quick pull, a single tap through and through the brain. And it’s another clean shot that doesn’t sit well with any of them at all when the man covered in smears of blood goes down at the side of the dirt road carved into the desertscape.

Hector and Charles glance at each other, their own firearms held a little tighter in their grip.

Jonas just presses harder down on the gas pedal to cover ground a little quicker.

 

Bob doesn’t want to be the one to say it because they know strategies and contingency plans. But there’s nothing set aside for something like—

“A zombie invasion.” Bob repeats flatly after the locals still in a nearby town.

 

They find their contact in a state not quite as they’d left him, and the scene is gruesome in a way they aren’t quite used to. With their exit strategy dashed, all they’ve got is a truck full of weapons they didn’t get to use, Alpha team figures there are worse ways to face an impending zombie apocalypse.

 

They quickly learn the rules.

“Headshots only, boys.” Hector says and none of them are looking at the bodies just yards away, the ones down for good, the ones that come lunging at a speed not quite as promised as the movies.

Mack tips his head back against the side of the truck and lets out a breath between his teeth, “Picked the right career for the end of the world, didn’t we?”

“How about that,” Jonas murmurs as he slides his gun back into his holster and settles in for a long night, a single contact of Charles’ elbow pressing against his side, Bob’s knee against his hip on his other side. Mack takes first watch, and for a few minutes, it’s almost as though they can all pretend this is just another mission.

But really, they are not out of their depth, not by much.

Well, not as much as they thought they’d be.

 

It takes them three days to find a cargo plane that can fly the distance they need it to.

It takes them nine hours to get back on US soil, but they are forced to land nowhere near Fort Griffith.

It takes them less than a minute to learn that things are much, _much_ worse in America.

 

“Local outbreak?” Bob proposes, at the window with the sniper rifle, picking off the ones in the distance, noting the way they gather, slow, steady, forming a force to be reckoned with.

“Biological weapon?” Carlito offers with a dip of his head, taking an inventory of what they have and what they need. Between bites of his MRE, Hector lets out from his spot next to Bob, the two of them sitting closer than they need to but at a distance they want to, “Either way, it’s damn near a zombie apocalypse out there.”

“This isn’t a movie.” Mack tells them, and there’s an edge to every word. But there's no order on these streets, just a profound sense that the world's wrecked and there's only so many people they can save, none of which are what means the most to them. Top drops a hand to Mack’s knee, waits until his second-in-command is turning his head to look at him that he starts, “No, it ain’t.”

The edge in his eases something in the rest of Alpha team though.

 

They don’t talk about their family, they just focus on getting back home.

 

“There’s one good thing about this.” Bob points out, bright eyes, false cheer in his voice given how long they’ve been on the road.

They are in another hidey-hole they’ve found for the night. With the distance covered, and the kills growing steadily higher and higher, the unease settles like a second skin now. What they react to is no longer the glint of a scope beneath the sun, what they react to is the dragging of feet against concrete, the stink of decay, the noises that they instinctively know to not be one bit human.

“Yeah, and what is that?” Charles has his legs kicked up on the table in the center of the living room. The rest of the team scattered around that single room they have reinforced inside out.

There is still electricity in the majority of the cities and towns they come across but they learn quickly that these things, whatever they are, however they came to be, are attracted to loud noises and brighter lights. They sit there with a dim lamp throwing shadows across the walls, a worn pack of cards lying scattered on the table.

“At least they don’t shoot back.”

When Jonas rests his hand over the nape of Bob’s neck, neither moves apart.

And when Mack drops down on the ratty couch, on the other side of Bob. His arm presses against his, his warmth spreads with his, they just shift to accommodate him too. 

 

They know where they are, they know where they need to be.

It becomes a matter of how.

Jonas and Mack and Bob don’t say that Charles and Hector have no need to go with them, that they don't need to risk themselves for something that might have been decimated almost an entire month back. They know better than to insult them like that. It's a world shot to hell out here but it isn't like this is their first time into hell.

Whatever they find when they arrive, they will find it together.

 

XXX Kuro


End file.
